Writing for success: Printing, examinations, and intellectual change in late ming China

The lower cost of printing offered new ways for publishers to exploit the book market by publishing more new types of examination aids. The ex­ aminees became increasingly dependent on printed books to enhance their chances of success in the civil service examinations. To attribute the ignorance of the candidates to their dependence on the model essays, as did Ku Yen-wu and Huang Tsung-hsi, oversimplifies the complex reading practice of the examinees in the late Ming. The examinees read more than just the model essays. We have a general idea of what the examinees read to prepare for the civil service examinations. The advertisement of books is a reliable source of information on how commercial publishers targeted their readers. In 1591 Yu Hsiang-tou, a prolific publisher from the famous printing center Chien-yang in Fukien, published a book with an advertisement listing a num­ ber of published and forthcoming books, and told the reader that they were “published exclusively for examination.” The list includes Classics, histories, poetry anthology, examination model essays, and six commentaries on the Four Books.